The Six Billion Dollar Experiment

[blike]

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-1357036518657151746&q=The+Six+Billion+Dollar+Experiment

 

I really enjoyed this video, thought I'd share it with you all! It's a BBC program on the LHC.

[Severian]

It is a really horrible documentary.

[gcol]

It is a really horrible documentary.

 

Why horrible? () Is it because:

 

It is a literary criticism from a qualified reviewer?

It is untrue?

There is no elitist algebraic gobbledegook?

 

My suspicion is that you want to keep it a secret so that us mere mortals can't question the astronomical cost of your big boys toy. If you want to hide it from the great unwashed, pay from your own pocket. As it is, it comes from my tax dollar, buddy, and I want to know how it is being spent.

 

Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

 

I have just remembered a previous topic or two questioning a perceived disinterest among the public in scientific matters. Could it be that scientists just dont want ordinary mortals poking their noses into what they consider their private, privileged, well-paid and pensioned passtimes?

[Royston]

It is a really horrible documentary.

 

It's a really horrible documentary because it eludes that the LHC will answer a 'theory of everything' which simply isn't the case. The narration says one thing, and is completely contradicted by some of the interviews. There's a young physicist on the programme who can't even remember the fundamental particles and forces...rubbish.

[Royston]

Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

 

Or don't expect incredibly hard subjects handed to you on a plate...it has nothing to do with physicists maintaining some superiority which is what you're pertaining. The documentary is filled with misinformation, and huge claims. I'll quite happily quote examples, but cross check these claims, that 'isn't' hard.

 

All due respect Blike, but I watched this programme the other night, and spent a good couple of hours explaining to my friends the flaws in this documentary.

[gcol]

Very mischievous of me, (probably), but quoting some of Snail's posts out of context, (possibly), I suddenly realised they could easily be slipped into the debate on global warming.....

 

"but I watched this programme the other night, and spent a good couple of hours explaining to my friends the flaws in this documentary."

 

"The documentary is filled with misinformation, and huge claims."

 

"Or don't expect incredibly hard subjects handed to you on a plate"

 

"The narration says one thing, and is completely contradicted by some of the interviews."

..............................

 

Just say "trust me, I'm a physicist. Everything I do is for the greater good, even if you are too dumb too understand. And anyway, we don't have all the answers right now."

[Royston]

Just say "trust me, I'm a physicist. Everything I do is for the greater good, even if you are too dumb too understand. And anyway, we don't have all the answers right now."

 

gcol, there's a world of difference between misinformation, and uncertainty...and at no point did I say you, or anyone else is too dumb to understand. If you put work into a subject then you will be able to decipher fact from crap, why you think there's some elitist secrets going on is baffling...if you want to learn physics then study the subject, don't rely on a BBC documentary.

[gcol]

I plan to build a new house. My neighbour just gave me a hard hat. It's the hat I have to wear for housebuilding. For my earlier comments I wore the hat of the ordinary man in the street (or "the man on the top deck of the Clapham omnibus", to use an old legal term denoting the same).

 

A serious physicist would be unwise to seek to learn from a populist, dumbed-down 3/4hr documentary made and broadcast by a state-funded corporation which has, as a stated remit, the aim to aid the education and awareness of the broad masses. (The TV licence payers).

 

I thought the program was a reasonable overview within its limitations. Admittedly it was not rigourously peer-reviewed, but if all "public information and awareness" programs were subject to such censorship, I fear we would have nothing but an interminable deluge of soap operas.

 

Anyway, I would rather Joe Public learned its science from the LHC program, with all its debateable flaws, rather than Startrek and Stargate.

 

What does Blike say?

[Royston]

I plan to build a new house. My neighbour just gave me a hard hat. It's the hat I have to wear for housebuilding. For my earlier comments I wore the hat of the ordinary man in the street (or "the man on the top deck of the Clapham omnibus", to use an old legal term denoting the same).

 

A serious physicist would be unwise to seek to learn from a populist, dumbed-down 3/4hr documentary made and broadcast by a state-funded corporation which has, as a stated remit, the aim to aid the education and awareness of the broad masses. (The TV licence payers).

 

I thought the program was a reasonable overview within its limitations. Admittedly it was not rigourously peer-reviewed, but if all "public information and awareness" programs were subject to such censorship, I fear we would have nothing but an interminable deluge of soap operas.

 

Anyway, I would rather Joe Public learned its science from the LHC program, with all its debateable flaws, rather than Startrek and Stargate.

 

That's a fair comment...but I think you're missing the point. The claim that the LHC will provide an answer to 'everything' is wrong.

 

What the programme should of concentrated on, is that the LHC may provide an answer to the mechanism of mass, but that's still uncertain...and that's hardly a theory of 'everything'. They mentioned the 'deep field' Hubble experiment, but again, this was many years ago, and this was predicted way before that, the observations agree with a theory...but particle physics and cosmology are far from being unified.

 

In short, the documentary is completely flawed in saying we're anywhere near to a theory of everything, which was the general theme of the programme...and made worse that the LHC was key to this theory, it's just 'part of', like any other successful contributions...if such a theory is possible.

[blike]

It is a really horrible documentary.

I figured the physicists would be disgruntled with it, much the same way I find myself criticizing anything medical I see on TV.

[swansont]

I figured the physicists would be disgruntled with it, much the same way I find myself criticizing anything medical I see on TV.

 

What things, though - are they fiction or supposed fact?

 

There's a bit of a difference between a TV show that tries to get some basics correct but is going to give the story line more attention, and a documentary that blows it because the journalists writing the copy don't really understand the material well enough to summarize the information.

[swansont]

Anyway, I would rather Joe Public learned its science from the LHC program, with all its debateable flaws, rather than Startrek and Stargate.

 

Anyone who thinks that they are learning science by watching Star Trek or Stargate is an idiot.

 

I haven't watched this particular documantary, but many of them are sabotaged by two things: the people writing the material aren't scientists, and so get important details and subtleties wrong, and the journalists have a misguided notion that dissenting views are worthy of mention and perhaps even equal consideration.

[GutZ]

hehe, I'd love to work in a place that have famous physicists as street names...

 

I could care less about the interview but the LHC is beautiful.

 

But I see they were going for that surreal look. And that scientist at 14.45 and his evil smile is funny I like him!

[Martin]

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-1357036518657151746&q=The+Six+Billion+Dollar+Experiment

 

I really enjoyed this video, thought I'd share it with you all! It's a BBC program on the LHC.

 

 

I enjoyed it too. It is beautiful and awesome. It will stimulate intense public interest in the LHC and the whole effort to get at the fundamentals of space time and matter.

 

I especially liked that after about 5 minutes of a preliminary tour of LHC they go to around 20 minutes of ASTRONOMY. I may have the times wrong but my impression is that the first half of the movie is really about stuff like the HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE deep field and WMAP mapping the cosmic microwave background. Then after that astronomy part they returned to the LHC and put it in the context of that overall search by astronomy back in time to beginnings.

 

this was a very smart documentary cinema strategy. the images of astronomy communicate especially well and they make the images of particlephysics easier for general audience to assimilate by analogy.

 

==================

BTW I disagree with certain things said by the scientists whom they interviewed, especially by Dr. Alvaro Rujula, but it doesn't matter. So what if some minor statement was dubious or misleading! The overall impact will be supportive of fundamental physics research, IMHO.

[Severian]

It was horrible because it made so many wrong statements. For example, the very first thing they said is that the LHC may create a black hole which would swallow the Earth!

 

It was horrible because it gave a wrong impression of what we are trying to acheive. It focussed on the big bang and astrophysics ("The Hubble telescope of inner space"!) and not on what we are really trying to find out.

 

It was horrible because it mangled up interviews into tiny pieces which they could manipulate to make say what they wanted to say rather than what the interviewee wanted to say.

 

It was horrible because it was the usual attempt to sensationalize everything, and pander to the cult of personality. Should we be surprised that the physicist who was interviewed (Brian Cox) was chosen not for his physics knowledge, but for the fact that he used to be in a boy band?

 

Martin, as a matter of interest, which of de Rujula's statements did you disagree with?

[Martin]

It was horrible because it made so many wrong statements. For example, the very first thing they said is that the LHC may create a black hole which would swallow the Earth!

 

It was horrible because it gave a wrong impression of what we are trying to acheive. It focussed on the big bang and astrophysics ("The Hubble telescope of inner space"!) and not on what we are really trying to find out.

 

It was horrible because it mangled up interviews into tiny pieces which they could manipulate to make say what they wanted to say rather than what the interviewee wanted to say.

 

It was horrible because it was the usual attempt to sensationalize everything, and pander to the cult of personality. Should we be surprised that the physicist who was interviewed (Brian Cox) was chosen not for his physics knowledge, but for the fact that he used to be in a boy band?

...

 

That is an interesting viewpoint. I have begun to have similar thoughts. One thing I wonder about is

 

What estimated energy density at the point of collision is the LHC supposed to achieve?

 

It seems to me that by making a kind of slogan out of "recreating the conditions of the big bang" the LHC public relations people are RISKING A HYPE BACKLASH.

 

this could be serious. the common idea of big bang conditions has Planck levels as a kind of benchmark. Planck density, Planck temperature etc.

 

IIRC in the movie they were making it sound as if LHC was supposed to achieve an energy density that prevailed "a billionth of a second after the big bang"

 

that makes it sound as if only a tiny bit different

 

at the spot where two particles collide, recreating a tiny bit of the beginning of the universe.

 

this is appealing but it could also be off by, say, 60 orders of magnitude.

 

So overselling on that point could lead to a hype backlash. I hope the public education/outreach department is being warned about this.